


And The Lights Go Out

by Huggle



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, Baby feels a disturbance in the force, Clan of two, Crying Baby Yoda, Din doesn’t understand what’s wrong until he does, Din has no time to grieve, Din is going to keep the baby safe, Gen, Good Dad Din Djarin, He just needs to find them shelter, It’s Just Them Now, Nobody Else Is Left, Not Din or The Baby, Pandora’s box, Post-Apocalypse, not really - Freeform, off screen character deaths, survival situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27888154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: Greef summons The Mandalorian to ask his opinion on a old man taken into custody in Nevarro, and the peculiar box in his possession, and his dire warnings of what will happen should the box ever be opened.Din thinks the old man needs help, that Greef is only 90% magistrate and 10% still the opportunist he used to be, and that it’s very likely the box will be opened by him before the Razorcrest clears orbit.Unfortunately, he’s right.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin
Comments: 17
Kudos: 54
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	And The Lights Go Out

**Author's Note:**

> Just some additional content warning before anybody reads any further: while all the deaths are off screen, and already happened, literally everyone we love in the series, except for Din and the baby, are gone. 
> 
> it’s just Din and his son, now.

_Six Months Earlier_

“Look, just talk to the guy. I want your read on him.”

“You told me you thought he was insane.”

Greef sighs, shrugs and leads Din into the detention area he and Cara have set up for the drunks and the rogues, typing the access code into the door that leads to the cells.

“I did. I do, I guess, but there’s just...something…”

The Mandalorian follows him, the child in the carrier at his hip quieted by the strange surroundings; someone yells suddenly from a cell, and Din hears a whimper, feels the small body tremble against him.

He reaches down, pets the kid’s head, strokes a finger soothingly along one long ear. “It’s okay. Greef.”

“Two minutes, that’s all,” Greef says, and then he’s stopping outside the glowing forcefield at the end of the hall.

There’s a man in there, or Din thinks it’s a man. He can make out a hawkish nose protruding from the shabby cowl the figure wears, and a pair of hands withered by age.

They’re clinging tightly to what looks like a wooden box, just large enough to hold a side blaster. The box looks just as worn and tired as the person holding it.

“Hey. Berlan.”

Watery blue eyes track in their direction, and the man pulls back and hisses at them.

Din glances at Greef, as he glances back with a shrug. 

“You can’t have it.”

Greef shakes his head. “I don’t want it. I just want you to tell my friend here what you told me.”

Berlan laughs. It’s high pitched frantic, and Din doesn’t know what’s going on here, but he’s pretty sure Greef’s prisoner is a little bit insane.

“He wants to open it,” Berlan says to Din. His voice drops to a rough whisper, ignoring the fact that Greef is still right there, still loud enough to easily carry. “But he can’t. He mustn’t.”

Din feels a spark of impatience. He has Imps to avoid and a Jedi to find and Greef delays him for this, but all the same there’s something here that feels like the cold touch of pure beskar on his bare skin.

“Why not?”

“Because once it’s opened, it can’t be closed. And everything in here will get out.”

Din glances at the box, studying the image through his visor. The only heat trace on it is from where the old man is holding on to it tightly; the wood itself is cold, no trace of any electronics or mechanisms.

It’s just a box. And the man will probably never be in full possession of his faculties again.

“Tell him what’s in it,” Greef says.

The man looks desperately down at the box and then back at Din. “Everything,” he says. “Every nightmare. Every heartbreak. Every pain. The darkness. The destruction of all that you know.”

He starts muttering under his breath, and wraps part of his tattered cloak over the box as if to hide it from their sight.

Greef leads Din away, through to his office. “What do you think?”

“I think he needs professional assistance. Greef. Are you planning something?” Because while Din doesn’t doubt his friend’s sincerity, or the work he’s done here, with Cara, to make this town safe, to start to stabilise this region, he knows there will always be a shadow of the old Greef in there, just that tiny layer of avarice in his veins...

And Greef has never been one to pass up a chance to learn things that weren’t his concern, especially before when information was a key part of his business.

“You don’t want to see what’s inside it?”

“How do you know anything is?”

“Exactly,” Greef says. “He’s either cortex fried or there’s something in that box that he is desperate to hold on to.”

Din thinks back to the old man’s words. “More like desperate to keep in there.”

Greef waves him off. “The same thing. I’m not going to take it, Mando. I just want to know.”

Din shakes his head. He has other places to be, and no time for this. “So the magistrate is going to steal someone’s property. What are you going to tell Cara when she returns?”

Greef actually looks offended. “Not steal. Just...peek inside. And since I’m not going to do anything she has to know about, I’m not going to tell her anything. Neither are you,” he pegs on, and gives Mando a stern look.

Din sighs. He supposes he’ll have to trust Greef that he won’t do anything more inappropriate than that.

He takes the baby back after Greef says his goodbyes, and then says he’ll try to check in once he gets a lead on where they’re headed next. Asks Greef to tell Cara he’s sorry he missed her.

And then he heads back to the Razorcrest, and takes them up and onwards, and hopefully to somewhere the baby will be safe, where they’ll find the answers and help that they need.

It’s only a couple of hours later that the baby starts to cry, and nothing Din seems able to do, not even giving him the shiny ball, soothe him.

In the end, Din puts them on autopilot and takes the distressed child down to their sleeping area, and climbs into the nook. 

The kid is clinging to him, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, and Din has seldom felt so helpless in his life.

“What is it, huh?” He gently dries the little one’s face, but the tears don’t stop. “Are you hurt? Did something frighten you?”

It makes no sense. He was fine on the planet, fine on the ship and there’s nothing here that could possibly harm him.

Din lies back, and the baby pushes into his arms, whimpering until Din hugs him, forming a shelter around the shivering form.

Eventually, after what seems like hours, he tires and falls asleep. It’s not a peaceful slumber though, and Din can only wonder at what upset the kid so badly.

++

_Now_

They don’t stay long on Eilanth. They don’t stay long anywhere these days.

The main population centre is deserted, and looks like it has been for a few weeks; still, he keeps his blaster drawn as he ventures from building to building, finding some food and and even a few spare parts they might need later.

It’s not like there’s anyone he can drop the ship off with for repairs these days.

The baby whines when he comes back, retreating up the ramp until he’s inside and can close it safely behind him.

He knows the kid hates being left alone on the ship, hates it when he, Din, is out of sight, but it’s not safe to take the kid out there with him.

He still doesn’t have the answers as to what happened, but he knows enough, and he doesn’t dwell on the memories of what he found when he risked a return to Nevarro.

He’s used to pushing through pain, whatever the source, and he needs all his energy, his focus, on keeping his clan of two alive.

Because if anything happens to him, all the people he would have trusted to take care of the child are gone...one way or the other.

Cobb had been his last hope, but even Mos Pelgo wasn’t too far out to be caught up in this…

In whatever Greef unleashed when he took that peek into the box.

Something thumps loudly on the hatch, and the baby goes silent; wide, frightened eyes look up at Din, and he nods, carefully, quietly, makes his way up the ladder and into the cockpit.

As he powers up the engines, the pounding becomes louder, heavier, more numerous; he doesn’t look down, not that he’d see much from the pilot’s chair anyway, but he already knows what is down there.

The Razorcrest lifts off, tilted sharply enough to dislodge any hangers on, and then they’re safely out of orbit and in space once more.

He knows they can’t keep doing this...their luck will run out eventually...but there’s nowhere he’s found yet that has any potential as a more permanent shelter.

Nowhere that hasn’t already been…. Infected, he supposes is an appropriate term. It’s different everywhere, even as it’s the same. Different mechanism, same result.

It’s the end.

But somehow, Din will make sure it’s not the end of them. He’ll survive because if he doesn’t, then the child won’t either.

He’ll survive, because it’s all he knows how to do now, and because someone has to.

He’ll find someplace untouched by this, someplace where they can be safe. And once he’s done that, then he’ll figure out the rest.

This, now, is The Way.


End file.
